LABOUR faces months of internal turmoil after Iain Gray dramatically announced his resignation following his party's thumping defeat at the hands of the SNP yesterday.

 

As well as a root-and-branch review, the party will also now undergo a potentially damaging leadership contest as the fallout from their worst result in decades b ecomes apparent.

Senior party figures expressed concern last night that the party could struggle to find a replacement, after a number of “big beasts” failed to win re-election.

Others warned the party’s woes could be a distraction from offering effective opposition to Alex Salmond and independence referendum plans.

Labour was heavily criticised for ploughing ahead with a lengthy leadership competition after last year’s General Election, amid accusations it allowed David Cameron a free run for almost six months.

Those running the Holyrood election campaign admitted a full-scale reassessment of their political strategy was needed, amid fears a series of tactical errors left them outclassed by the SNP.

The party was shocked almost none of the huge disgruntled Liberal Democrat vote transferred to it, instead going almost wholesale to its opponents.

And a decision not to use the regional vote as a safety net for high-profile names left it without a handful of its most talented members on Holyrood’s benches.

There were a series of shocks as Labour heavyweights fell one by one to the SNP, and the party even lost its third-safest seat of Glasgow Shettleston. Former first minister Henry McLeish described it as a “tremendous defeat” for the party.

Within hours he was warning it was a “night that Labour has to learn from … the thinking should be starting and it has to start now”.

Among those who lost their seats were a number veteran politicians tipped as possible challengers for the leadership, including former ministers Andy Kerr and Tom McCabe. Mr Gray himself was re-elected with a majority of just 151 votes, following a recount, in his East Lothian constituency.

By mid-afternoon he had announced he would stand down, though not immediately.

He will give up being party leader in the autumn, once the internal review is under way.

“Iain probably wants to go straight away, but it’s hard,” a senior Labour politician said last night. “Who would be his replacement?”

Mr Gray appeared to warn colleagues of the size of the struggle they face, describing the changes needed to bring the party back to power in Scotland as no less than a “radical reappraisal of the structure and direction of Scottish Labour”.

The election was supposed to be the start of a Labour fightback across the country.

The party had insisted all week that internal polling was telling them its share of the vote was holding up.

Although their share in the constituency vote barely fell, down just 0.5% on 2007, what the party underestimated was size of the swing to the SNP. Its share of the vote climbed 12.5% on the constituency alone.

Architects of the campaign openly admitted they did not understand why almost all of the disgruntled LibDem vote transferred straight across to the SNP.

John Park, the party’s election co-ordinator said: “We will have to go away and try to figure this out. It is not something that we will be able to work out in the next 48 hours.”

Labour party sources said the party’s machine in some constituencies performed dreadfully. “Some people think that putting out a leaflet through the doors constitutes a campaign. It doesn’t,” one said.

Willie Bain, the Glasgow North East MP, described Labour’s campaign as riddled with gaffes, without a convincing strategy and failing to show voters the party had changed sufficiently from 2007.

Others warned the party now faced new problems.

Of the Labour group elected on the regional list, a number were considered such long shots to ever become MSPs that they are almost unknown to some even within their own party.

Scottish Labour attempted last night to get back on the front foot, saying it was pushing ahead quickly with the party review.

Colin Smyth, the party’s general secretary, spent part of yesterday drawing up what would be the terms of reference for the inquiry.

The party is understood to be eager to create as much stability as possible for the new leader to take over.

Mr Gray has been criticised for squandering a large early lead, and for appearing to attack Margaret Thatcher, not the SNP, for the first few weeks of the disastrous campaign, leading to a much-mocked relaunch.

But the party’s deputy leader, Johann Lamont, defended him, saying he had been a victim of a “vitriolic” campaign.

In a statement Mr Gray himself said the Scottish electorate had spoken and “given a clear result”.

“There are many hard lessons we must take forward from this election, not least my own responsibility and role as the Scottish Labour Leader,” he added.

Other political parties stuck the boot in.

Annabel Goldie, the Scottish Conservative leader, said: “I think Labour has a major task on its hands now, analysing where it is going in Scottish politics and why this election unfolded as it did.”

Mr Bain suggested one thing that could help rejuvenate the party was a left-wing think-tank, based in Scotland, that could feed fresh ideas into the Labour machine, to help it revive itself.

He added it would be “difficult” to come up with a replacement for Mr Gray but cited Jackie Baillie as a possible contender.

However, he was adamant that seeking to get a politician currently based at Westminster would send out the wrong signal.

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